At last week's Middlesex Community College debate, 6th District congressional candidates were then asked to address the “current state of dysfunction” in Congress without using the phrase “reach across the aisle,” which proved to be a somewhat challenging exercise.

John Devine expressed his willingness to do a bit of “horse trading.”

“You have to come to an agreement to move everyone's agenda forward,” he said.

Seth Moulton suggested it was folly to keep sending the same people to Washington, expecting different results. He said he hoped he could join Hawaii's Tulsi Gabbard and Massachusetts' Joseph Kennedy as part of a “new generation” of leadership capable of breaking the gridlock, noting that Gabbard and Kennedy had each already shepherded bills through the House.

Rep. John Tierney reiterated, however, that Democrats are not the issue, pointing to a study by Norm Ornstein indicating that the Democrat-controlled body from 2007 to 2010 was the most productive Congress since 1965, passing a number of bills with bipartisan support.

But he said that anger should be directed to Speaker Boehner and his people. He implored his opponents to “stop the personal-ambition nonsense” their critiques represented.

Marisa DeFranco told Tierney that he does not “get to be as frustrated” as his constituents, as one who has collected a taxpayer-funded salary “while the rest of us are hurting.”

She then charged both Tierney and Moulton with having “already been bought and sold,” Tierney by PACs, from whom she said he “takes half his money,” Moulton, by “K Street and Wall Street… and the companies whose so-called ‘braintrust'” had destroyed the economy.

Moulton answered that, unlike the congressman, his campaign had received funds from only two PACs, one a veterans group and the other that supports Alzheimer's research. As for setting aside personal ambition, Moulton said that is exactly what he had done as a Marine, when he said his job description was simple: He was “responsible for everything the platoon does… or fails to do.” He contrasted that to Congress, where people are all too ready to take credit but none of the blame for failure.

Devine, meanwhile, suggested that “access to media” be used to put pressure on obstructionist members of Congress in their home districts. He added that he believes strongly in campaign-finance reform.

“I'm the small-money guy,” he said.

Tierney said he was proud to have the support of labor and the other PACs supporting him, along with the Democratic Party establishment, which was needed to rebuff well-funded Republican opposition. He noted that they continued to stand by his side rather than defect to one of his primary opponents, which he attributed to his fierce and effective advocacy on their behalf.